


and there'll be love in the bodies of the elephants too

by emilybrontay



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 21:17:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8260763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilybrontay/pseuds/emilybrontay
Summary: “I guess? I don’t really know anything about kids.”Amy thought about how, their third week as partners, Jake had sat with a kidnap victim and held her hand and listened to Beyoncé until the little girl was ready to give her statement. A lady reporting a burglary once brought her baby in and Jake had let him pull his ears and nose whilst Amy wrote down the woman’s details. Angry teenagers brought in on vandalism charges never answered her questions, but nine times out of ten they’d warm to Jake. “But it’s a conversation.”“Right. Yeah. It’s definitely conversation.”Title is from 5 Years Time by Noah and the Whale





	

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in like three hours when i should've been doing other things. SHOUT OUT TO PHIL FOR MAYA RUTH SANTIAGO PERALTA!!!!!!!!

June 2009

* * *

 

They had exhausted ‘When I Was A Kid’ hours ago, and Jake had won ‘My Worst Date’ with his story about having to arrest Gina’s friend Claire in an Olive Garden. Amy shifted in her seat, checked her phone and took the binoculars from him.

“I wish these guys would _do_ something,” Jake complained as she watched their possible-perps ( _arsonists, maybe, definitely kidnappers_ ), “I hate boring criminals.”

“Shhh, they’re taking their trash out and – oh, it just broke. There’s food cartons all over the sidewalk! God that’s a health hazard. When will people learn to double bag their trash?”

“You’re so weird. What would be in _your_ trash, Santiago? Doilies?”

She shot him a _c’mon man_ look, but decided to play ball. They were going to be here a while, in his smelly old car with only each other and Taylor Swift’s entire discography for company.

“ _No_ , more like…microwavable meals for one.”

“Sad,” Jake remarked, and she handed him the binoculars.

“I want the kind of life where I never have to purchase a mac-and-cheese-for-one from the bodega on the corner at ten forty on a Tuesday night again.”

“I want to learn how to use my microwave,” Jake said absentmindedly.

“Seriously man?! You don’t know how to microwave?”

“Of course I know how to microwave,” he said, laughing – and then, because he liked it when she looked at him with creased eyebrows and mouth agape “Who d’you think exploded the machine at work and made that big burn on the ceiling?”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“When I have my own precinct,” she began. This was Amy’s favourite game. Jake’s was Weirdest Collars, shortly followed Grossest Stuff I’ve Eaten, which Amy straight-up refused to play. He’ll play ball though, he thought, he’ll listen to her list what she’ll have in her office and what kind of couch they’ll have in the break room. She’d listened to his story about the Olive Garden and Gina’s friend Claire, after all.

“And I’ll have a dress code, because I think it’s important to look smart, and no matter how many times you tell me you solved that mugging in your pyjamas you _can’t_ be taken seriously as a figure of authority in _jammies_ okay? And in my office I’ll have an office chair with _working wheels_ , and framed pictures of my kids on my-”

“Wait,” Jake interrupted her, “You want kids?”

The list had never included this detail before. For some reason, he’d assumed Amy was like him, content with solving crime as a lone wolf ‘till the end of her days. He knew she wanted to get married, sure, but he’d kind of assumed that was because she wanted her mother and brothers off her back. Every time she came back from Christmas-at-the-Santiagos, she’d signed herself up for dumb internet dating sites and let her friend Kylie set her up with every eligible bachelor in the Tri-State area. To be honest, Jake couldn’t _really_ understand why Amy had so much trouble dating – she wasn’t ugly, she was super smart and yeah, she was boring and obsessed with rules but there were some guys that were super into that! Maybe they all lived in Ohio, the most boring place on Earth.

Amy shuffled around awkwardly in her seat, like she was embarrassed that she’d said that.

“I mean…yeah, eventually. Don’t you?”

“I dunno. I’ve never really thought about it. I’m hardly Captain Responsible – hey that could be your name when you make captain!”

“Really?” she asked softly, too softly for Jake’s liking. He wanted to crack another joke, to stop her looking at him like…that. “Not even when you were, like, in relationships?”

It was Jake’s turn to shuffle awkwardly. “Well it’s never – like, I’ve never had that conversation you know? It’s never got to that.”

“I guess it’s a conversation you have to have with the right person,” Amy said.

“Totally. Yeah. With the right person.”

“I mean, is that a conversation you’d want to have?”

She sounded genuinely curious.

“I guess? I don’t really know anything about kids.”

Amy thought about how, their third week as partners, Jake had sat with a kidnap victim and held her hand and listened to Beyoncé until the little girl was ready to give her statement. A lady reporting a burglary once brought her baby in and Jake had let him pull his ears and nose whilst Amy wrote down the woman’s details. Angry teenagers brought in on vandalism charges never answered her questions, but nine times out of ten they’d warm to Jake.

“But it’s a conversation.”

“Right. Yeah. It’s definitely conversation.”

There was silence, and Amy watched their perps watching television. She wondered what they were watching, and if they felt bad about what they’d done. And if they knew she and Jake were there, making notes on their every move. She hoped when the arrests were made, higher-ups would let her sort through the garbage. She loved going through garbage.

“What would their names be?”

“What?”

“Your kids,” Jake said, “Or whatever.”

He’d added the _or whatever_ in an attempt to be nonchalant, and it didn’t work.

“Oh. Uh-”

“I mean you’re so organised and you plan everything so I figured…”

Amy had only ever talked to Kylie about this, in the way that you do after three glasses of wine and a half hour crying because you might end up completely alone. Like Jake, it had never got to that with any of her relationships.

“Maya,” Amy said clearly, “If I have a daughter I wanna call her Maya. It’s short for Amalia, which is – was my abuela’s name, and I’m kind of named after her, and it means love in Nepali and – it’s cute.”

“It is cute,” Jake agreed quietly. “My kids’ll probably be called like…Lightning or Crash or John McClane or something.”

She laughed.

“Maya and Lightning…” she said, a little wistfully.

“Sounds like the coolest detective show ever.”

“D’you think they’ll be friends?” Amy asked quietly.

“The way their names sound together they better be.”

She laughed again, and picked up the binoculars.

* * *

 

June 2019

* * *

 

“Park Slope Peralta.”

“Park Slope _Santiago_ Peralta, and she’d be bullied forever.”

“It’s after where she was conceived!”

“In that case why don’t we just go the whole hog and call her _Couch_!”

“That’s actually a pretty neat name,” Jake said, and Amy shook her head.

“Gina wants us to name her Regina the Second.”

“Right that down in the middle name column.”

Amy did so.

“Your handwriting is so neat,” Jake said warmly, “I hope she has your handwriting.”

“I hope she has your cooking skills.”

“I hope, for all our digestive healths, she has that too.”

“Rude! You were supposed to say something nice about me, not imply that I’m responsible for your terrible digestive health!”

Jake laughed, and sipped his coffee.

“What about after Holt?” Amy said.

“Two Rays would get confusing.”

“Middle name column?”

“Sure. Put Charlotte in there too, for Charles.”

Amy obliged. “I think Charles is more excited about the baby than we are.”

“He keeps bursting into tears at work, and when I ask him what’s wrong he says I just thought about you and Amy’s baby and it was _too much_.”

“I think if we named her Charlotte we’d finish him off forever.”

“It’d be worth it for the look on his face when we told him.”

Amy hummed in agreement, and counted the names she had written in the list.

“God, we have 16 possible middle names and only _3_ first names, and one of those is John McClane which _you_ wrote down, so it doesn’t count.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t crossed that out.”

“And mess up the paper? What do you take me for?”

Jake finished his coffee, and got to his feet to take the empty mug to the sink.

“I don’t even know why we’re making this list,” he said absentmindedly, “You already told me you wanted to call her Maya.”

“When did I tell you that?”

“Like, ten years ago. I dunno. We were staking out those creepy arsonists. You said you wanted to name your daughter Maya and I said I wanted to name my kids Lightning and Crash, which was a joke by the way, none of our kids will be called Lightning.”

The baby in Amy’s stomach kicked, hard.

“Jake!”

“What, what is it, is it the kid, is she okay? Are you okay? Should I call the doctor? Should I call Captain Holt?”

Amy laughed, and Jake sank back against the sink in relief. He wasn’t sure _when_ he started worrying about things more than Amy, but he was pretty sure it was sometime around the ten week sonogram. The knowledge that he has begotten (great word, Holt taught him it) life scared him more than any criminal ever had. But like, a cool scared.

“She kicked when you said Maya. God, I can’t believe you _remembered_ that.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t, and that it wasn’t your first suggestion when we started the list!”

Amy shrugged. “I wanted us to choose it together, I didn’t want it to be like, _my_ name for her and not yours.”

“Amy,” Jake said seriously, “I think you’re the best person in the world.”

“Thanks babe.”

“Write Maya down.”

As she did, the baby kicked again.

“Maya Santiago Peralta,” Jake said as he sat next to Amy, “She sounds so cool.”

“She does,” Amy agreed, “I can’t wait to meet her.”

 


End file.
